The Evolution
by Chisuke
Summary: A small part of the Zerg Swarm manages to travel to a different universe and cause great headaches to every faction. New Overmind. Strong Zerg. And lots of evolution. Don't expect regular updates. Slow start.


This is my first story, so I hope you're going to be merciful with your reviews and ignore some grammar mistakes, because English isn't my mother tongue. I gained inspiration for this story from **The Swarm of War** by **VexMaster** and **It's About Time** by **Max Ross**.

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Warhammer, Starcraft, Harry Potter, Naruto or any other movie/game/book (yet).

* * *

It certainly wasn't a good day to be Zerg. The battle of Char caused an annihilation of a large number of Zerg forces and deinfested Kerrigan, but luckily the Overmind left orders in case something like this happened.

The deaths of their brethren sent a shock through their connection and caused an immediate activation of Overmind's orders.

* * *

**Aiur**

Dozens of hive clusters stopped their activities and gathered a few Overlords and Overseers each, which were then filled with Drones, Hydralisks, and more than enough resources to build a Hatchery or two. Their destination was a space, where they were to find a suitable planet for Zerg.

Those seeding groups quickly departed to start their search, but one wasn't so lucky.

This group's hive cluster got attacked by Protoss survivors left on Aiur, who capitalized on the moment of weakness, caused by Kerrigan's assault and because most of the higher tier creatures were summoned to Char, the cluster didn't have the quality nor quantity of forces needed to repel the attack and it's out of way position prevented reinforcements from arriving in time.

The Protoss charge was led by two Dragoons and forty six Zealots, who tore their way through Zeglings and an occasional Hydralisk. Any sign of successful resistance was further discouraged by one of seven High Templars or a Void Ray, who made the second line of the attack. The third line was most numerous and consisted of armed civilians, who provided support for second and first lines.

The attackers penetrated the cluster's defenses and started targeting the loaded Overlords, which made completing the preparations impossible and unfeasible, but orders were orders and they had to be fulfilled, so the remaining Overseers began opening a wormhole.

The firs to notice it were the High Templars, who quickly pointed this out and strained their vast power to reverse the process. Both sides fought for what seemed like years until a lone Zergling distracted one High Templar with a sneak attack, causing the energy to get completely out of control.

The wormhole briefly opened, sucking in a half of the original seeding group and an old Protoss Dragoon. It lasted only a second and then destabilized, resulting in an explosion that sent the nearest combatants flying.

* * *

**Segmentum Tempestus**

**Spartus Sector**

**Orbus System**

Orbus System consisted of seven planets, their moons and a star. Out of seven planets two were inhabited by subjects of the Imperium of Man and the rest being uninhabitable. This system had one rarity. The two inhabited planets shared one moon, which changed the planet it orbited every ten years and caused a palpable animosity between them.

The military presence in the system was light and most of it concentrated in a small (by Warhammer standards) fortress on the moon, guarding a detachment of Adeptus Mechanicus, who performed minor repairs on passing ships.

Ragok, the habitable planet nearer the system's star, was home to almost five and half billion people and, being a civilised world, it had access to the wonders of Imperial technology. In terms of gravity and temperature were both planets similar to Terra.

Beron, the further habitable planet, was populated by over nine billion people and was getting ready to claim a status of hive world, making it higher in station than Ragok. The animosity ran truly deep and there was almost no trade between the two communities.

* * *

**Ragok**

Titus Agmar, an eighteen years old male, wasn't having a good time. He spent an entire afternoon gathering mushrooms and looking for hares, but his luck apparently took a nap, because his basket wasn't full and any hares he spotted ran away before he could reach for his bow. The sky was darkening and he would have to make his way back to his shack even if there wasn't anyone waiting for him.

Wanting to unwind a bit, he sat on a boulder and reminisced. Not a good idea. His mind flew back to what happened roughly three years earlier. Everything has been changed, just because he was a bit different from the rest.

Titus had a good life before that. He lived in a city with his middle-class family. His parents and elder brothers loved him. Food was tasty and toys were never denied. It was really good to be pampered, but reality just had to come and take it from him.

Titus' fangs were always a bit longer and his skin got a purplish sheen, when hit by light just the right way, but those were ignored, but his features got even more alien. Around his fifteenth year, he began balding and his eyes' slowly turned amber. Titus was successfully hiding those changes for a time, but his family started noticing those changes. Connecting the dots, his family came to a conclusion that he was some kind of mutant.

To say his parents didn't react well would be an understatement of a century. Titus actually didn't remember much of what happened, but when he collected himself he was standing in a dark street with a word abomination ringing in his ears and painfully throbbing cheeks.

He spent next month living from trash, quietly cursing the Emperor and begging for help. It was truly pathetic existence to him and suicide seemed like the best solution at that time, but then his luck made itself known and he came.

"You look like you need some help, laddie."

"Go away."

The stranger was an old man with prosthetic arm, thinning gray hair and numerous scars across his wrinkled face. His outfit wasn't fancy or neat, but you wouldn't mistake him for beggar.

"I won't waste your precious time then. I'm going to make an offer to you. This body is tired and weary, so I'm not getting all the work done. Help me with this and that and I will allow you to live with me."

Turning on spot, he continued on his way. Titus immediately forgot the sarcasm, distracted by the proposal. He wanted to refuse, but he didn't really have anything to lose.

"… Wait! I'll take it!"

"Kamir. You?"

"W-What?"

"Your name, boy."

"Titus Agmar."

"Hm, what a good and lenghty name. I'll call you tit."

Titus seethed and ,still shocked by the earlier happenings, said the first thing he thought of.

"Old geezer."

"Hahaha, that I am, tit."

"I hate you already."

* * *

The time he spent with Kamir was great and he enjoyed living with Kamir in a lonely hut no matter how much teasing and prodding he was bombarded with. He spent those days growing crops and taking care of cattle. The evenings were spent with Kamir recounting his service in the Imperial Guard. Stories of mighty Astartes, distrustful Inquisitors and brave men ready to die fighting the enemies of the Imperium became routine.

With a heavy sigh he forced himself back to real world. Kamir died four months ago and it was time to move on. He knew better than to think about past. Kamir wanted him not to mourn his death, when it would inevitably come, but to live on and Titus was going to fulfill his last wish.

Abruptly, critters stopped making little noises and plants ceased their rustling. Something was happening. Feeling an abrupt blast of wind hit him, he turned just in time to see a flash of light in distance and, being stupidly curious as he was, he decided to investigate.

When he arrived to the scene, he had to climb over a few fallen trees only to find himself in a clearing, in which resided something hideous. In the middle of the clearing was a ball a ball of purple flesh with some bluish streaks and odd pieces of carapace. The worst thing was that it was still twitching. He wanted to puke, but he held back.

Feeling more courageous then he thought himself to be, he picked a branch from the ground and went to poke it. What a foolish idea. The moment he touched the thing with the branch it sucked it in without any warning, making him stumble. He fell right onto it, getting absorbed too.

The experience was startlingly painless and slimy, he thought he would be in great pain now. A few seconds later, he got his wish granted. It was agony beyond anything he ever felt and he would have screamed himself hoarse if he could. His mind was screeching in pain, as it was being torn apart and merging with the mind of the mass. Titus' mind then shut down and he fell into a sleep-like state filled with experiences and memories instead of dreams.

If there was anyone in the clearing, they would've seen the mass shudder and get enveloped in a pulsing chrysalis. It would take days before it would be ready and Titus would spent those last moments of his existence dreaming of great battles, terrible massacres and lives, becoming a part of the Zerg Swarm.

* * *

The time finally came. The structure was fully developed and the merging of minds was complete. The chrysalis burst open, spreading purple substance over the clearing and revealing an alien structure. It was ready to fulfill its purpose and immediately started the process of birthing Larvae, however, the mind would need a longer time to fully wake up.

The mind woke up with a mental yawn and, trying to stretch its limbs, began taking notice of its state of existence.

_°What the hell?! Where did…°_

Jumbled memories of the Zerg race and the old Protoss made themselves known and slammed to the front of his mind, giving him a mother of all headaches. On the bright side, he was now sure of who or rather what he was and why he couldn't even twitch his fingers.

_°I am… Overmind. Yes, I'm the Overmind of the Zerg Swarm.°_

His identity established, it was a high time he would start managing the Swarm. Sensing the amount of units he had at disposal, he had a hatchery and two Larvae. He still had some resources gathered by the seeding group and the clearing his Hatchery resided in was covered in a thin layer of Creep. He had the Larvae morph into Drones and realized a presence of a significant problem.

He had never seen or heard of minerals forming clusters of crystals nor Vespene gas geysers. That was bad. The Swarm's evolution made it dependent on those resources, as their substitutes weren't good or abundant enough to warrant a reorientation, but he was the Overmind and he would find a way to get the needed resources.

His efforts were nearly in vain and he spent a great portion of time thinking of infeasible solutions, but in the end he found it. The solution was a Gorgeling. Not exactly, but the principle behind it. He would make a pool-like structure secreting acid similar to that of a Gorgeling, but he would tweak it, so the yield was better. He would also remove its explosive properties.

Absentmindedly ordering the newly spawned Larvae to morph into Drones, he went about designing his first Zerg organism. The acid was easily altered, because, when it was first encountered, the acid was used in a purpose similar to his and the Swarm doesn't forget.

_°Now, how big should I make it? Obviously the dimensions can't be too great, but it has to be spacious enough to digest the things to be digested. I think 7m in diameter and 3m in depth should do the trick. By the way, why am I talking to myself?°_

Ending the monologue for the sake of his sanity, he put in final requirements. Protective mucus was a must, it just wouldn't do for his first creation to digest itself. The structure would be mostly burrowed, but it would have a slightly raised edge in case his Larvae felt adventurous. To finish it he added two tentacles for throwing out indigestible materials and it was ready.

There were already four Drones waiting for his directions, so he sent three of them collect wood from the fallen trees and some rocks, the last one was to transform itself into the new building, the… Assimilator. Now that the work was assigned and the problem with gathering Vespene wuld be next, but now he would think about the absence of resource formations native to every world known to the Swarm.

He dug into the memories of the Swarm and the Dragoon, looking for any mentions of the Imperium of a Man, Chaos Gods and Space Marines. He expected the result, but knowing that they didn't know about them was a bit disappointing and exciting at the same time. It meant that he was either in a very distant part of universe or in an entirely new one.

Thinking about it, he felt the explanation with a new universe was more plausible. One, Chaos didn't exist in the Zerg home universe. Two, there existed a planet Terra in their universe, but it wasn't the so-called Holy Terra. Three, from Titus' limited knowledge of galaxy he knew it to be fairly similar. There were other hints like being unable to feel any other Zerg through their race's connection and so on.

Now, he needed an Overlord to do the micromanaging of Drones for him, not because he couldn't do it, but it would be much easier to have them take care of it plus it would offer him a measure of surveillance. Therefore, he had one Larvae change into an Overlord and the rest into Drones. (Hatchery spawns 16 Larvae per day, Lair 18 and Hive 20.)

The Drones that had been already assigned work have collected a good amount of wood and rocks, which would become a source of nutrients and some minerals once the Assimilator was hatched, but he had a different task in mind for them. They would look for the best substitute of Vespene gas.

Vespene was essentially a complex chemical, which Zerg prized and used for variety of purposes. The quick growth of Zerg units and structures were only a tip of an iceberg. It allowed existence of complex organs in higher tier units, for example spine firing and producing organs of Hydralisk or the organs producing Glaive Wurms of Mutalisk. Copious amount of mutagens was also there.

The gas could have been substituted by right volcanic gases, but there was no volcanic activity in the region and he didn't know of any location, which had it. He had the drones sample some local plants, but didn't get any outstanding results, so he sent two of them to head to the Shrieking Forest, which was a zone surrounding the Green River. They earned their names for being home to weird animals and plants and coloring caused by the toxic waste from factories respectively.

The Shrieking Forest wasn't that far and he got to see through their eyes huge sequoia-like trees, standing in average 120m high, which immersed everything in shadows. The forest didn't see as scary as he remembered it from his human memories. Predators somehow sensed that Drones were dangerous and didn't attack them and stronger predators attacked at night, so they traversed the small distance undisturbed.

The gathered samples of water were promising and he started devising the best way to gather the needed chemicals. He could devote all his mental capacity now that he had an Overlord taking care of Drones, so he quickly came up with a modified version of an Extractor, which would be hidden on the bottom of the river near the place, where the waste was pouring out of a pipe.

The solution brought another problem. The chemicals couldn't be transported the normal way, so he had to grow a modified Nydus Worm, which would act like a pipeline, delivering the product right to the Hatchery. With that being done, he gave his Overlord a new set of orders and began organizing his memories.

* * *

Reviews, please. I would like to know what you like and dislike about it.


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